


an invincible summer

by intertwingular



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: & a happy ending don't worry, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Post WWI, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, art included, copious allusions to kaguya-hime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-05-28 13:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwingular/pseuds/intertwingular
Summary: Ex-Court Painter and prophet Viktor Nikiforov returns home changed after the Great War; his cousin moves into the ancestral estate with him, and at night, Viktor dreams of a deadly winter that comes to claim them both. Desperate, he strikes a deal with Katsuki Yuuri, a man made of the stuff of stars and legends - three paintings, for the guarantee that both Viktor and Yuri will survive the winter.They fall in love somewhere along the way.





	1. prologue: ADAGIO - slowly, we turn.

**Author's Note:**

> so heres my yuri on ice/yugioh zexal/post-ww1 au 
> 
>  
> 
> kidding - kidding. i'm just kidding. this was one of my two pieces for this years viktuuri reverse bang! i got to collaborate with the lovely, _lovely_ taiga ( [ odinbytiye](odinbytiye.tumblr.com) on tumblr ) on this fic and while this took!! wow, such a long time to finish, i'm very happy to be sharing this with ya'll. 
> 
> further notes are at the end, as usual.

“ _in the midst of winter, i found there was, within me, an invincible summer. and that makes me happy, for it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger - something better, pushing right back.”_ **\- albert camus, _the stranger._**

 

 **prologue. ADAGIO — slowly, we turn.**

 

_February 23rd, 19XX_

_Vitya._

_Perhaps I should not be so familiar — it has been years since we have met; I would go so far as to say decades, but I am not yet old enough to have forgotten Yuliya and Pyotr’s funeral._

__

_Forgive an old man’s rambling. I will try my best to be brief, for time is short for both you and me. If you are receiving this letter, it means I have passed away. As written in my will, this letter will make its way to you, and with it, I have one request._

_I do not know if you remember Yuri or not — you were young when you met him first (and last), barely sixteen — and I know he does not remember you, for he was only three. But if you are reading this, it means that not only am I dead, but that Yuri is all alone. There is no one else in this wide world for him but you, Vitya. I am sorry to ask you this; I know you are busy, painting and painting, but I beg of you. Please take care of Yuri. He is a lovely child, perhaps a little too angry, but that is a fault of my own, for I worry that I was never quite enough to fill the holes left behind by Yuliya and Pyotr’s passing. But keep faith in him, Vitya. I know that with time, Yuri’s anger will abate, and he will learn._

_I also hope, that with Yuri, you will learn to be less lonely. It pains me to see you so alone. And no, no matter what you may have told others, I know for a fact that your art is not companion enough. This is not what Anatoly and Irina would have wished for you, Vitya._

_Live well, and all my love,  
Nikolai Plisetsky_

* * *

Sunlight streams through large palace windows, slats of buttery white light, strong and bright, illuminating the glittering quartz and marble inlaid across the floors; and squinting through the sunlight, Viktor Nikiforov adjusts the heavy cloak draped across his shoulders. 

“You don’t have to leave,” Mila says, hovering in the doorways. Her skirts are gathered in one hand, the shade of wine red enough to make Viktor’s hand twitch around the phantom of a paintbrush. She’s a resplendent figure, scarlet wine vivid against the white and cream of the Winter Palace — the kind of scene Viktor has painted before, a demure, gorgeous figure, bright against a muted backdrop, both serene and regal in face and pose. 

He thinks he will miss that particularly, will miss _her_ particularly, because adopted daughter of the late Tsar and Tsarina or not, Mila was his muse in every sense of the word. Viktor will be lonely without her, without her fiery temperament, and certain, insistent warmth. 

But Viktor smiles at her, half-bright and crooked. “No, Mila.” _I don’t_ want _to leave,_ he wants to say. _I want to stay._ But family comes first; family, no matter how distant or far away they were, and Great-Uncle Nikolai is dead. The Winter Palace can no longer be Viktor’s home, not as long as little Yuri is alone. A part of Viktor is bitter about it, but Viktor recognizes his limits, both self-imposed or otherwise. He’s an adult, and with the title comes responsibility. It just so happens that one of them is Great-Uncle Nikolai’s grandson. 

Mila smiles at him, impossibly young and old, tinged with just a touch of sadness. “I know,” she cuts in, and her eyes glitter wetly. “Just — stay here for a moment? Please.” She turns tail in a sumptuous swish of her skirts, back into the inner rooms of the Winter Palace, back to the hallways that are more familiar to Viktor than his little hometown, tucked away in the backwaters of Russia. 

Viktor watches her go, and in the emptiness, thinks that _maybe,_ just maybe, he might be homesick. 

“Here.” Mila rushes back in, color high on the apples of her cheeks, a well-worn book tucked beneath one arm. “Here, Viktor.” She all but shoves it at him, and Viktor turns the small novel over in his hands. It’s familiar, from the faintly glimmering binding that speaks of woven copper threads, to the dark cherry leather covers and faded yellow pages that smell of the old royal library. 

_Zvyozdochka_ is written across the front cover in curling, copper script. “Little star,” Viktor says aloud, and the word curls on his tongue, familiar and bittersweet; Viktor _remembers_ this, remembers long winter nights in front of a crackling fire, Mila pouring over this book with him, because the stories were _Mother’s_ , even if they’d never had the bound book, just memories and stories passed down in the dark of night. 

“Oh,” he murmurs, and his eyes feel suspiciously wet. “Oh.” 

“It’s yours now.” Mila steps closer, and she smells of herbs and flowers, something fragrant and vague, and her smile is so _sad._ “I know that the palace — that you’ve lost your inspiration, that you have to watch your cousin now, but…” she falters, smile eerily fixed in the way Viktor knows she smiles at pushy courtiers and uppity mage trainees that come to the Winter Palace, flirtatious and disrespectful, and then shrugs. “We loved these stories as children. If you’re going to find your inspiration anywhere, I figured it would be with that book.” 

Viktor tucks the small book into one of the pockets sewn into the lining of his thick winter coat, patting the book through the thick navy fabric — a place of honor, right atop his heart. “Thank you, Mila.” He doesn’t have any other words for this, this act of sudden kindness. 

Suddenly, there are miles between him and Mila, and in one breathless moment, Viktor sees how this will end, how they will write letters, try desperately to keep this bond between them intact, despite the distance, and how it will fall apart; how they will become nothing but distant strangers to one another — an ex-Court Painter and the reigning Tsarina. 

Viktor tries to swallow around the suffocating lump in his throat, surging forwards at the same time as Mila, to wrap her in a hug. 

_“Write,”_ she begs him. “Please, Viktor. Write me, find a mage and scry, _I don’t care.”_

“I will,” he promises her, quiet and hushed. “Mila, I swear — I _swear,_ I’ll write.” 

_“Good.”_ It’s an exhalation, a prayer, and Viktor feels her sag in his arms. “It’s going to be lonely without you here.” 

Viktor pulls away from her, hands on Mila’s shoulders. “Nonsense,” he tells her cheerfully. “Chris is coming in December for the summit, isn’t he? _And,_ we’ll all be meeting up in March for your birthday, naturally.” 

Mila snorts, tossing her bangs out from her eyes. “Naturally,” she mimics softly. “Like there was any other way.” 

Viktor hates how it feels like something final. He knows, _knows_ that this isn’t the final goodbye, how he’ll be seeing Mila again in a matter of months - but March seems so far away from now. Months will put distance between them, time and space and experience that they will not have shared. 

“Yeah,” he says - and the tension is already between them - and bends down to pick up his trunk. How odd it feels, trying to fit his entire life into a worn leather suitcase. No matter how heavy the suitcase might feel - Viktor rarely lifts anything heavier than a canvas on a normal day - it doesn’t feel heavy enough to encompass the years spent in the Winter Palace, with Mila and Christophe. 

A glance at his watch tells him that noon is soon approaching, and with it, the train back home to Zvezdnaya Dolina. “I have to go,” Viktor murmurs. The lump in his throat is back, large and ever-present, and trying to swallow or breathe around it is like trying to breathe around a rock. 

Mila, ever perceptive, pulls him into a hug, crushing and strong. Viktor breathes her in again, heady and floral, and desperately tries not to burst into tears. 

“This isn’t goodbye,” Mila promises, voice muffled against his chest. “Viktor, this isn’t - this isn’t goodbye, okay?” 

“Okay.” And that’s it. What else can Viktor say? How can he tell Mila about the looming sense that this may be goodbye, how this feels all too _final_ for it to be anything but the end.? “You’re right,” he tells her, and knows, somehow, that it cannot be anything but a lie. “But I really do have to go, Mila. My train comes at noon.” 

“Oh - _oh!_ ” Mila steps away, eyes a little damp, a little red, and smooths her hands against the rich velvet of her skirts. “Right. Wouldn’t want you to miss your train, would we?” 

Viktor hates how detached Mila sounds, how vague and far away she feels; _but this is for the best,_ he tells himself. _A clean break. A clean break._

“No,” Viktor agrees - _i want to stay,_ he doesn’t-can’t-won’t say, _let me stay_ \- and smiles, wide and damnably fake. “I’ll write you once I’m home, Mila.” And sweeps out from the hall, away from the Winter Palace, and starlit nights by roaring flames, away from childhood stories in copper-bound books, and the last memories Viktor has of Mother and Father. 

His watch hand moves closer and closer to twelve, cogs mechanical and cold, ticking to the racing tempo of his heart. _A clean break,_ Viktor thinks, and it feels an awful lot like trying to convince himself, than fact, _this is for the best._

(the secret is: it doesn’t feel like a clean break. viktor’s heart is in messy pieces, scarlet red shrapnel in the cavity of his chest, in the place of his beating heart. it stabs through the weak skin covering his bones, like a burst of Cast lightning, and viktor clutches at the fabric above his heart. 

he does not grip fabric - just the hard edge of a leather-bound book. _zvyozdochka,_ viktor remembers, and does not say it aloud, for fear of making it permanent. _a clean break,_ viktor thinks, _what a fool._ )

* * *

On the train, Viktor dreams. Dreams of horrible snippets of blood red, vibrant and terrible against white snow, blond hair against hardwood floors, dreams of a winter worse than any he can remember. The wind howls, possessed by something angry and _old,_ and the snow falls like ice, seeking for _something_ to sink its fangs into. 

There is no solace to be found in a winter like this. No soft promise of new life, no sunshine reflecting off white snow, just death, inevitable as it is harsh. Viktor trembles in the face of the winter, of the unrelenting, _bitter_ cold. Someone shivers against him, and outside the window, the world is awash in nothing but white. White, like the Beginning the Church scriptures speak of, white like the color of the ashes of their long-dead. 

The world is white and dead and _cold,_ and he is alone and no one is coming for them, but he _promised_ , he promised and - and Viktor wakes up. His chest is heaving in time with his struggling breaths, knuckles white around the armrest of his train seat, and across from him, a child, thumb stuck in her mouth, watches on impassively, tucked against her sleeping mother’s side. 

Viktor lifts a finger to his lips, smiling sheepishly as he pleads the child to stay quiet. There’s no need to broadcast his Gift - something so small as faint prophecy is unpredictable at most - _and surely_ , Viktor tells himself, _surely that cannot be anything but a nightmare._

His hand twitches around empty air, searching for the handle of a paintbrush, a canvas and paints. _A desolate scene,_ Viktor thinks, and stares out the window at the countryside rushing past in Impressionist blurs of forest green and icy gray. He misses his paints, misses the rasp of horsehair brushes against the thick canvas, and the way the colors seemed to bloom when the days were good and light. 

Perhaps it isn’t so much the _painting_ that he misses, but rather the days, when everything was easier - the days before the war set in, and the Germans prowled the seas in submarines, before the war took prisoners, dark five-point sigils branded into skin to block Gifts; perhaps painting is simply the only way Viktor can think of to express the days before the winter set in, oncoming chill for days and weeks and months on end, cold stealing the breath from innocents, carrying the anger and the will of the Higher Spirits with it. 

Viktor shakes his head and presses his cheek against the cool glass. Better not to dwell on things that lurk too deep, lest he be dragged down, never to return. Viktor knows that path intimately, knows it biblically through grief and loss and an overturned automobile on the side of a snowy road, with only two, cold, bleeding bodies slumped over in its leather seats. It isn’t a kind one. 

(the secret is that viktor isn’t _good_ at letting go; as a child, he gripped his mother’s hand like a vice, cried whenever she tried to leave, bawling his little-boy lungs out until the effort left him red and gasping, ugly and tired like a tomato left too long in the midday sun. 

perhaps, it is only logical to assume that such a reaction would carry over to _other_ ways of letting go: viktor grips the memories - _all_ memories - of his parents tight enough to choke, drags them into himself and looks them over, again and again until he cannot forget a single thing. he does it until the shoals begin to darken, tide pool waters jewel bright and clear up top - 

but it’s so _dark_ deeper down. lonely and dark, a tomb for a beloved wife and mother and cherished husband and father - and their son, little and cold, silent and pale, leeched of life and sun.) 

The train moves forward, ever closer to Zvezdnaya Dolina and this strange cousin Viktor can only remember through paint-smear memories of a clear day and a little boy gripping Great-Uncle Nikolai’s hand as the pallbearers covered Aunt Yuliya and Uncle Pyotr’s urns in half-frozen dirt. All the while, Viktor tries not to dream of the winter and the cold that has just begun to set in. It is, of course, always better to welcome a new family member with positive thoughts - nevermind a grieving child. 

_“Next stop is Zvezdnaya Dolina,”_ echoes over the PA, stray magic causing the voice to reverb around the train cars, and Viktor rises from his seat to haul his leather suitcase down from the overhead baggage rack. Still tucked against her sleeping mother, the child pops her thumb out of her mouth and waves, an unspoken _goodbye, goodbye._

Viktor smiles at her, brief and tight, and quickly, moves away from the train car. There is something _unsettling_ about that child, from her beetle-black eyes, to the solemn silence she observed him with, never making a sound, even when Viktor knows he had likely thrashed and turned in his sleep. 

_“Zvezdnaya Dolina,”_ the PA calls, and the train slowly begins to stop. _“Zvezdnaya Dolina.”_

He pushes it from his mind as the trees begin to look more like trees, and less like Impressionist blurs on a cold gray canvas, and the doors open with a hiss and lackadaisical puff of steam. The cold air is sudden and sharp, a drastic change from the pleasant warmth of the train car, but Viktor just pulls his gray scarf up higher, trying to ward away the biting chill, and pushes onwards, towards the orphanage and his home on the outskirts of town. 

(back in the train car, the child shakes her mother awake, and her mother hums, contemplative as they look out the window as one, two pairs of beetle-black eyes watching a head of silver hair disappear into the winter countryside. 

a breath later, and they are both gone, nothing to mark their presence but the lingering warmth on the leather seats and the faint scent of something otherworldly; too simple to put into words.)


	2. one: SARABANDE - the world waits for no one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> viktor and yuuri finally meet - above, winter looms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE SECOND CHAPTER!! thank you guys so much for the great response last chapter! i'm a little swamped with replying to the ones in "my fbi agent and i" but i'll be doing my best to answer any questions ya'll have for me regarding tis. 
> 
> please enjoy! and as usual, you can find the art for this on tai's tumblr, linked in the first chapter.

**one. SARABANDE - the world waits for no one.**

Quickly, Viktor learns that Yuri Plisetsky is, indeed, angry. He also thinks that _maybe_ , Great Uncle Nikolai was understating it a little bit when he called little Yuri angry. _Furious would be a better word,_ Viktor thinks distantly, watching with a faintly amused expression as little Yuri scowls at him with enough force to scorch even the sun. 

“You’re _late_ ,” he spits, arms crossed over his chest. Little Yuri is fifteen to Viktor’s twenty-eight, yet so indignant and angry in the way only teenagers seem to be able to muster. Where he gets the energy for it, Viktor doesn’t know - he’s too exhausted to conjure up anything but faint amusement at this point. 

“Yes,” Viktor replies, pulling his scarf down around his neck. “I realize. The train was delayed back in Sankt Alina. Did you miss me, Yurotchka?” He can’t help the teasing coo, or the half-laugh that bubbles outwards when Yuri goes beetroot red, scowl dark enough to summon storms. 

Little Yuri scowls harder - and _how_ that’s possible, Viktor hasn’t the faintest idea - and looks away, scuffing the heel of his boots against the floor. “What _ever_ ,” Yuri declares, and turns on his heel, moving further into the warmth of the orphanage. “The nuns want you to show them Deda’s letter before we can go anyways.” 

Viktor huffs out a reluctant laugh, and calls out after Yuri, “go and finish packing, then. We’ll be gone in fifteen minutes.” He gets no response in return, but as Viktor turns to enter the nun’s office, he thinks he can hear the clamoring of children by the stairs, all pulling and whispering with one another as Yuri moves past. 

It really isn’t any of Viktor’s business, the politics of this little orphanage, tucked into the side of Zvezdnaya Dolina’s single church, but he affords himself a moment to be briefly concerned about Yuri, who is both too old and too young to be in an orphanage. _Keep faith_ , Great Uncle Nikolai’s letters had read. _Keep faith in him._

“Gospodin Nikiforov?” A sister pokes her head out the office door, and smiles, crows feet curving in time with her soft smile. “We’re ready for you.” 

Viktor sets his suitcase aside, stepping forwards to shake the Sister’s hand. “Thank you for waiting for me,” he says, bowing with a sharp nod of his head. “Yuri told me that you wanted to see Gospodin Plisetsky’s letter?” 

The Sister nods, moving to sit down behind her dark wood desk. “Yes,” she says, smoothing down the thick white cloth of her habit, “we’d like to verify that Gospodin Plisetsky really _did_ hand custody over to you. It’s nothing personal, Gospodin Nikiforov, but better safe than sorry.” 

He smiles at her, and puts behind it the full force of his wide, white grin, before reaching into his coat for the folded up letter. “Here,” he slides it over, and tries to ignore the sudden rush of _desperation_ that rises as the rough parchment leaves his fingertips. It’s irrational, but Viktor is an artist, sentimental to a fault, and Great Uncle Nikolai was the last one left, the last bastion before the oncoming change. And the truth is simply; Viktor is _tired._ He and Yuri are the last ones left, and all Viktor really wants to do is go back home, back to Mila and the Winter Palace, and live beneath his comforter until the winter passes. 

“ - Gospodin Nikiforov?” 

Viktor looks up at the Sister, and blinks a few times. She smiles kindly at him, letter held out between them, and Viktor shakes his head and tries to smile as if he hasn’t just been contemplating trying to sleep through the rest of the winter. 

“Ah, thank you.” He takes the letter from her, worrying the sharp creases between his fingers as the Sister demurs that it was her pleasure, before leading him back out into the orphanage. “Is Yuri packed?” Viktor asks, purely for the sake of conversation. From the look the Sister gives him, she recognizes this too. 

“Well, I’ll call him down, and we’ll see,” she says, and smiles weakly at him. “Ilia, would you mind running upstairs to fetch Yuri from the dorms?” The little boy - Ilia - looks up from his ratty little book, and nods silently before running upstairs. “Ilia will bring Yuri down.” 

Viktor rocks on the balls of his feet, and absentmindedly loosens the knot of his scarf. “Of course. Take all the time you need,” he tells the Sister, setting his suitcase down by his feet. “There’s quite some time before sundown.” 

“Quite,” she agrees, clasping her hands in front of her, “but it still would be much safer for you to be on your way well before sundown. It’s been quite some time since anyone from our Church has blessed your ancestral home, but I believe it’s quite a ways away from here, yes?” 

She’s right. Viktor remembers the lush evergreen forest that separates the Nikiforov ancestral estate from the rest of town proper, remembers watching the sun set in hues of rosy red and lavender over towering evergreen giants, calm grey-blue sky set aflame with the sun’s daily goodbye. He also remembers the monsters that prowled the forests after sundown, how their coats rippled like pitch black ink, dark enough to swallow any nearby light. Mother had always lit the lanterns outside the front doors with Cast light, faint purple from the leftover imprint, to ward away any creatures on the prowl. 

Viktor wrings his hands together one, then twice, and wonders if the light he will Cast will look like his mother’s, a small thing left from a woman Viktor misses like he would his own limb. It hurts a bit, to think about how the old estate has changed, after being abandoned for the better part of a decade. 

“You’re right,” Viktor murmurs, a little too late for it to be socially acceptable, and cranes his head, trying to see further up the stairs for any sign that Yuri is approaching. The orphanage, once cozy and homely, now feels oppressive - too warm and too cramped, just as Viktor feels too large for his body, ill-fitting in his skin. He wants to leave, but impatience has never gotten him anywhere. 

Yuri, thank the gods, stomps down the stairs seconds later, like a particularly angry angel descending. “I’m packed,” he spits, sullen. “Let’s go before it gets dark.” 

The Sister smiles, a little strained, but all kind, and turns to Viktor. “Here, Gospodin Nikiforov.” She presses a card into his hands, runes humming warmly beneath his touch. “Call for Annushka Romanova if you ever need anything. The Church will continue to help the Nikiforov family, as we’ve done in the past.” 

Viktor tucks the rune card into his coat pocket, letting it rest against the small leatherbound book. “Of course,” he says, and smiles widely at her. “Trust that the Nikiforov family will continue to aid the Church as well, now that we’ve returned to Zvezdnaya Dolina.” 

Sister Anushka smiles, a touch too wide to be demure, and dips her head in a small bow. “The help will be much appreciated, Gospodin Nikiforov. Go with the gods, and safe travel until you return home.” 

Viktor nods a small bow in return, stooping down to collect his suitcase. “May the gods bless your hearth so that it remains hale through the winter, Sister Annushka.” 

The wind outside is biting, cold enough that it feels as if it were moving straight through his coat and scarf. Beside him, Yuri shivers, hunching his shoulders to bury further into the collar of his coat. Viktor makes a note to buy a new one for Yuri soon - the coat is threadbare, fur lining thinning and patchy. It won’t last through the winter. 

( _especially_ , a voice in his head says, _not_ that _winter._ not the biting, deathly white, nor the soul-stealing cold, _howling_ with the kind of anger that shakes the heavens, straight from the mouths of the Higher Gods. 

viktor tells the voice in his head to _quiet._ his Gift is small, quiet and unassuming, an underwhelming echo of the prophetic beacon it was before. _it won’t happen,_ he says, over and over until he convinces himself that it might be true.) 

“Ready to go?” He asks Yuri. 

Yuri rolls his eyes, scuffing his feet against the fresh powder from the afternoon’s sprinkling of snow. “I was ready _ages_ ago,” Yuri grumbles, “can we just _go_?” 

“Not just yet,” Viktor says, and wonders if he was ever this impatient. _It’s a teenage condition_ , he thinks, and remembers how he, Mila and Chris had caused hell in the Winter Palace during their teens. “I’d like to stop off at the village proper to get you a studier coat.” 

Yuri tugs the cuffs of his coat further around his bird-bone wrists and scowls. “My coat’s fine as it is,” he snaps, and shoves his gloved hands into his pockets. “I don’t need a new one.” 

Viktor wags a finger in front of Yuri’s face, and quietly marvels at how _easy_ it is to rile his little cousin up, and how funny it is to watch the younger get redder and redder in the face, until he finally howls out whatever’s on his mind. “Nonsense, Yura,” Viktor says, “you’re a growing boy, and one can _always_ use a new coat.” 

Yuri’s lip curls upwards a little at that, and he scuffs the heel of his boot against the fresh powder. “ _Fine._ But I’m choosing the coat, okay? None of those stupid,” he gestures at Viktor, “capital cloak things.” 

“ _Cloak things_?” Viktor clasps his hands over his heart, over the hard edge of the leather bound book, and fakes a swoon. “I’m hurt, Yura.” 

Yuri scowls, blowing hair out from his eyes. “What _ever_. Let’s just go before the sun sets.” He bends down, scoops his trunk up, and stomps off through the powder snow, kicking up iridescent clouds as he goes. The sun glitters across the smooth white, turning the snow into sky for the brief moments that the light touches it. If moments could be framed, perhaps this one should have been - a moment that Viktor will be able to look back upon and point, saying _that was it - that was when something began to change._

Viktor thinks back to that horrible vision - _dream_ \- from the train, thinks about pervading, never ending dark, and the quick flutter of a weaker heart against his chest, small and young, and the grip around his wrist turns to bruising. 

_It’s not a vision_ , Viktor prays. _It_ can’t _be. Please, don’t let it be._

* * *

His messenger comes back when the world is on the cusp of night. Fleet-footed, it lands on the rocky surface of the reception rooms, beetle-eyed mother and daughter pair dissolving into shadow with a wave of a clawed hand and the clear, bright jingle of a belled bangle. 

“You’re getting better at that, Yuuri.” 

“Minako-sensei!” Yuuri turns around with a jolt, gossamer veil rippling with his sudden unease. The shadows jump around him for a moment, blue streaks of magic crackling through the dark like lightning through stormy clouds. “You - you startled me.” 

Minako laughs, deep throated and raspy, waving a hand through the gathering darkness. It clears in a wave of lilac, and Yuuri spares a moment to briefly marvel at the ease with which Minako commands her magic. _Easy as breathing_ , Yuuri wonders, and wishes it were that simple for him. _One day_ , he tells himself. _One day._

“So?” Minako moves around him to perch on the arm of his chair, dark skirts rustling as they fall gracefully around her. “What did you find?” 

Briefly, Yuuri caresses the bangle around his wrist, and feels Vicchan’s soul sleeping in it, tired after expending so much energy shifting into the mother-daughter form from the train. “A prophet,” Yuuri murmurs. “And an artist.” 

Minako raises an immaculate eyebrow. “A _prophet_?” She asks, incredulous. “Yuuri, you’re certain?” 

Yuuri nods. The timbre of a prophet’s magic is unforgettable, after the bittersweet summer Yuuri spent with Celestino. The old Italian prophet had tended to the most beautiful garden Yuuri had ever seen, nurturing it to life with steady streams of olive green magic - and it had hurt him, like it always did, to leave the old man behind. “Of course,” Yuuri says. “And an artist too.” 

Minako hums, quiet and pensive. “Poor thing,” she murmurs, and around her, lilac magic curls, creating the phantom figure of her familiar, Benois’, sleek form. “To be a prophet in this turmoil that looms.” Beside her, Benois eyes Yuuri with little regard, one pale eye watching him as she flicks her tail against the cobblestone. “I guess you’ve decided, then.” 

Yuuri looks out at the city, through the wide window panels that overlook the center square. The lights are all lit, people moving about their days, using transports and warps to get to work - but the world is still dark, for all the effort they put into it. Beauty is so scarce in these trying times, Yuuri knows this, he knows it in the way that Mari comes home later and later, sleep deprivation etched into the lines of her skin; in the way that the sigils protecting their cities from Outside are beginning to flicker and fade. With so little beauty being cultivated back on Earth, they are failing. Fading. 

Like there was ever any other choice, Yuuri wants to say. _Like we have another option_. The Katsuki-kai are still Hasetsu’s sovereigns, and though they have long since moved past monarchies, although they have moved to annual votes, the Katsuki-kai are still Hasetsu’s protectors above all else. Yuuri is just one more name in a long legacy of blood and sweat and toil, and no matter what, his duty and his heart lie with the people of Hasetsu. 

“The sigils are fading, Minako-sensei,” Yuuri says in lieu of a response. His hands tighten around each other, clawed tips digging into his skin. Around him, the shadows thrash, his own restlessness reflected in them, and Yuuri _breathes_ , a long, drawn and tired sort of thing. 

“Mhm,” Minako hums. “I suppose that’s that, then.” 

“Of course,” Yuuri replies, and his words are bitter and resigned to the taste, “like there was any other way.”

* * *

That night, Viktor dreams of the winter again - but something has changed. The wind doesn’t howl, and there is no dark terror and fear, no barely-warm body shivering madly against his own. The world is unnaturally still, iridescent fractals casting light across Viktor’s vision. 

It’s undeniably beautiful, awash in white as far as the eye can see, with a pale robin’s egg sky - but quiet, and all too still, almost as if the world is holding its breath for something. This, Viktor realizes, cannot be a vision. The wind feels almost fake against his cheek, the sun too bright to be real. He reaches down, brushing a finger through the snow, and watches as every little flake travels back into the perfect blanket of white it was before. There is no _panic-fear-panic_ , nor half-broken promises crashing through his mind either, no despair but the kind Viktor always knows. 

“You’re right,” a voice chimes, “it’s not.” 

Viktor whips around, as the world blurs around him, moving and _changing_ into a sight Viktor has never seen before. The buildings are tall, skyscrapers reaching for stars that twinkle and shift above his head, and the sky is a deep, deep black, like a night without the moon. Below his feet, there is no ground, and for a second, Viktor can feel his breath leaving him in a panicked woosh, as he stumbles backwards. 

Magic is a beautiful thing, Viktor knows. He’s seen Mother cast spells as easy as breathing, seen fae lights brighten up Sankt Pyotr’s streets, even during wartime, but this - this feeling of weightlessness, the world without something beneath him is terrifying. 

(he still fears falling, still finds himself afraid of the drop and the inevitable impact.) 

“ _Ah!_ ” Something nudges him back to his feet, and when Viktor turns his head, hands still shaking, his mystery voice is not there, just a small trail of ice blue Cast, already vanishing into the night. “It’s just glass,” the voice murmurs. “There’s ground beneath your feet, I promise.” 

“Who _are_ you?” Viktor asks. Below him, the lights are so bright, brighter than Cast flames, illuminating what looks to be New York City, all buildings that scrape the clouds and fast moving automobiles. The glow of transport sigils is ever-constant, one only fading for a split second before another lights up in another area. “Where am I?” 

“Hasetsu,” the voice says. “My home.” There’s breath on the nape of Viktor’s neck now, and Viktor moves away from it, turning, if only to see empty air once more. The snap-crackle-pop of ice blue Cast lingers where the voice does not, and in a fit of whimsy, Viktor reaches out, if only to move away once the burning chill of it registers on his fingers. 

He’s never felt a Cast this cold before. 

“It’s…” _Busy, bustling,_ alive, Viktor wants to say. But...alive doesn’t quite work. There’s a pervading sense of _wrong_ in this place, in Hasetsu, and its spirit. Alive isn’t the right word, for all that this metropolis is alive with the movement of its people and their business. “...big,” he finishes lamely. 

The voice laughs, a bright, clear, bell-like sound. “Definitely,” it says, uncertain laughter ringing in place of its somber tone. “Hasetsu is our largest city.” 

“And who is this _our_?” Viktor spins around again, but whoever the voice belongs to is gone again, vanished from sight sooner than Viktor can catch a glimpse. _This,_ he decides, _is decidedly horrible._ Already, Viktor is dreaming up some imaginary figure, a muse draped in shadow, in nighttime velvet and a crown of icy blue stars. Bluebells at their feet, and church bells above them, done in the bold lines and idyllic figures Alphonse Mucha is so fond of. 

Perhaps Viktor can see the appeal of it now, the women becoming saints, becoming something holier than what mere mortality can hope to capture. And _that_ , that is why this is decidedly horrible. _No more saints_ , Viktor tells himself. _No more idyllic women in crushed velvet, no more Madonna of false faiths._

There’s a brush of cold air against the nape of Viktor’s neck and the slivers of exposed wrist between his shirt and his gloves. The world seems to be holding its breath again, waiting for _something._

Slowly, Viktor turns around. 

“Oh,” he says. 

The voice - the man, the Spirit, _whatever he is_ , is something terribly stunning, in an otherworldly sort of manner. Horns like a ram’s curl from his long, ribbon bound hair, and a gauzy veil covers the features of his face. His wrists are thin, boney and fine, like a ballerina’s, and if Viktor looks down a little further, he can see black bleeding into pale skin, finely boned hands into sharp-tipped claws. 

“Oh?” The Spirit asks, head cocking to the side. His veil slides to the side, revealing the smallest sliver of pink-tinged lips, flushed enough that Viktor suspects rouge, and a strong jawline. 

“You’re - you’re,” Viktor’s voice is caught in his throat, and he swallows around the lump his words form. “...remarkably human,” he says, finally. 

The Spirit laughs a little at that, though it sounds more nervous than truly amused. “Really?” He folds his hands together, worrying the cuffs of his button down. “I would...I would think that the horns and claws,” and at this, the Spirit gestures to himself, “detracted from the humanity.” 

“...horns aside,” Viktor continues, veering quickly away from _that_ conversation, “this isn’t a vision.” 

“No, it is not,” the Spirit confirms. 

“Then how am I here?” 

The Spirit begins to stride, heels of his boots clicking against the glass floor. Viktor watches as he presses his palm flat against a wall, seemingly steadying himself as he looks down through the floor. “I called you here,” the Spirit says. “We...are in need of something you can offer.” In his sleeve, clawed hands twitch. 

_Of course_ , Viktor thinks. “Why?” Maybe it comes out more bitter than intended. 

The Spirit looks back at him, and though the veil shrouds his eyes, Viktor can feel wary surprise emanating off of him. “To explain would require some backstory -” 

“Of course,” Viktor interrupts, and watches as the city continues on beneath his feet. The swooping sensation in his stomach doesn’t abate. _I hate heights_ , Viktor thinks to himself, and watches the figure from the corner of his eye. 

“Hasetsu is one of five great cities in our realm,” the Spirit continues. They both ignore the slight tremor in his tenor. With a wave of his hand, he Casts a holo, ice blue sparks moving to form the shape of five cities, connected by what Viktor suspects are leylines. “We are connected to the four other great cities by the leylines - and all of our people are born into great magical power as a result of this.” With a flick of his hand, the Spirit spins the Cast holo into another image, five families rising from the sparks. 

“Of course, there are families with greater magical power than most - we call them the Kai. Each major city has one - Kasai has the Oda-kai, Tobu, the Minami-kai - it goes on. All four families can claim direct ancestors from either Kaguya-hime, or her retinue, so our duties have, well, shifted in the past several hundred years.” 

“Kaguya-hime?” Viktor asks. The name sounds vaguely Japanese in nature - but Russia has always had a less than ideal relationship with Japan and her people, and the myths and legends of the country are foreign to him. He wishes they weren’t. Vague mentions of Japan and her legends travel through Russia, from Japanese _onmyoji_ travelling Westward by foot and train; they always sound so ethereal, unreal and beautifully human, like these foreign gods and goddesses have somehow managed to exceed their own creations. Maybe once, before this and the war, Viktor would have liked to paint it, milky-skinned women with fox-like faces, shoulders half bared and nearly scandalous. He’s always lived for a good scandal. 

Maybe then. Certainly not now. 

The Spirit spreads his arms wide, holo families merging together to form the silhouette of a woman, clad in long, flowing robes, surrounded by four glittering blue figures. Her face is done in intricate detail, a casual display of impressive Casting control, and if Viktor looks, he can see subtle similarities to what little he sees in the Spirit. Fine boned and delicate, with a strong, sloping jawline and a figure like the ballerinas Viktor has seen in Degas’ paintings time and time again. 

“Kaguya-hime,” the Spirit says, and spins the holo ‘round once more. “My ancestress.” 

There’s only one noticeable difference. “...the claws and horns?” He asks, hesitantly. 

The Spirit lets out a small chuff of laughter. “Kaguya-hime is...was the most powerful powerful Caster to exist in a long, _long_ time. It was an easy feat for her to hide her claws and horns, especially when she fled to Earth for a time.” 

Viktor swallows around the implication of that, milk pale and silk clad women forgotten. “So the myths...they’re true?” 

Shrugging, the Spirit molds the holo back into a glowing ball, letting it go in a small, elegant motion. “All myths have a grain of truth to them. Kaguya-hime and her time on Earth is real - a recorded part of our history - but as for your gods and your legends...I couldn’t say.” He shakes his head. “But I - I didn’t ask you here just to tell you that.” 

There’s a terrible silence between them for a moment, only broken by the whistle of far away chimes as the wind continues to blow through. The world holds its breath again, and Viktor tries to hold himself to silence, unable to look away from the Spirit and his terrible, terrible grace. 

“The leyline’s powers aren’t infinite, Mr. Nikiforov,” the Spirit finally says. “Yes, our people are still magically powerful, but the leylines are what fuels the runes that protect our cities. We’ve resorted to finding other means of powering the runes, and, well,” he gestures meaninglessly, frustration evident in the spread of his hands. “Art is a particularly powerful source. The ancestors understood this - art, in and of itself, holds a sort of magic that we cannot recreate with Casting and prayers and leylines.” 

“What exactly _are_ you saying?” Viktor is certain he already knows - he can feel the certainty of it deep in his gut. He’s not sure why he wants to drag this on more than he has already. 

The Spirit smiles, a wry quirk of his lips. “I’m suggesting a trade. Those visions of yours will come true. You are a Seer, after all. I will help you survive that bitter winter, if you make three paintings for us.” 

Viktor cocks his head, and turns to stare out at the sprawling city beneath his feet. “...will three paintings really be enough?” Hasetsu is large, bustling like a city in America, like New York City, which Viktor remembers like a faint taste in the back of his mouth. _Caput Mundi_ , Viktor thinks, _the center of the universe._ The runes that protected New York during the Great War were vast and enormous. Three paintings, no matter how much time, sweat and tears they would take seems nowhere near enough. 

“More than enough. Our Castings are much more efficient than yours,” the Spirit admits. Viktor wryly notes that the man almost seems _ashamed_ to admit it. It’s kind of funny. “But you should sleep on this. Make a decision when the shock of it isn’t quite as...fresh.” 

“And when I make my decision?” Viktor asks. 

“Call my name,” the Spirit says, and leans forward, veil brushing against Viktor’s face, gauze smooth and slippery. He presses a quick kiss to the crown of Viktor’s head. Blue sparks burst into existence between them, and when the Spirit steps away on feather-light feet, a lily rests in Viktor’s hands, cream-colored petals unblemished and perfect. 

“...Lily?” 

The Spirit - not Lily, because it doesn’t feel _right_ , doesn’t click in the way a Name should - simply shrugs, a faint, fleeting smile on his lips. 

Before Viktor can ask for an elaboration - a better clue, _something_ , the world is swirling beneath his feet, Hasetsu turning to watercolor whorls before his eyes. The sound of chimes echoes between them once more, and Viktor closes his eyes on Hasetsu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are appreciated! next chapter should be up next week :3c


	3. two: SONATINA - something is shifting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IIII haven't updated in a while! thats actually sad because this entire story is already written and yeah i have 0 excuse enjoy!

Months pass in a blur. Settling Yuri, settling _himself_ , back into his childhood home is hard. Ghosts lurk in the corner of Viktor’s vision, spectres of a better, easier time, of people long since passed. Mother’s ghost lingers in the dining room, in the war-turned-cartography room, amidst her maps and fine china; Father’s lingers in doorways, watching as he always did, or beside Viktor’s untouched easels and paints, ghostly fingers brushing against the tooth of his canvas, over bumps from an oil painting that is not there. 

If he blinks, they disappear, ghosts that were never there banished back to the aether, and the Nikiforov estate is too big once more. He and Yuri cannot fill the house, with all its creaking, spiral staircases and Grecian pillars - and no fire quite chases away the chill that has settled in the house after nearly a decade of emptiness. 

It’s lonely. Certainly no place to raise a child. Maybe once, the Nikiforov estate was a home, when it was filled with the people that made it so, but the only people that remain are two orphans of a war that seems to never end, nevermind the Treaty of Versailles. 

“Your visions,” Yuri finally says one day, “are they...getting worse?” Weak sunlight filters through the gossamer curtains of the dining room, and Viktor half-watches as it bounces off of the porcelain white curve of the tea cup being worried between Yuri’s hands. 

“Careful, Yuri. Don’t burn yourself on the tea.” Viktor takes a sip of his own tea, sweetened with a teaspoon of sugar and a dash of milk. It reminds him of the ridiculously sweet way Mila takes her tea, with a dollop of jam, almost half the tureen of cream, and most of the sugar cubes in the bowl. The normally bitter brew Viktor drinks is too much, here in this house, too much a reminder of Mother and her homegrown herb garden. 

Yuri scowls, placing his tea cup onto the saucer with a violent clink. Viktor raises an eyebrow at that, watching as the milk pale brew sloshes in the china, spattering the wood table with tea. “That’s not an answer, you moron.” 

“Aggressive,” Viktor says, solely to be contrary, and takes another long draw of tea. “And my visions aren’t something you need to be concerned with, Yurotchka. I haven’t had a dire one in...years.” 

“I’m not _stupid,_ Viktor.” Yuri crosses his arms over his chest, leaning backwards in his chair. Briefly, Viktor wonders if the scowl is a _permanent_ feature, or if being around Viktor just makes Yuri ten times grumpier than usual. He’s sure Sister Annushka or Uncle Nikolai would be able to tell him. “Mama was a prophet too.” 

Emphasis on the _was._ Viktor winces at the reminder of it, and sighs, placing his teacup down onto its saucer. “You’re fifteen, Yuri. You shouldn’t be worrying about me,” Viktor sighs, weary. It’s been getting harder and harder to brush Yuri off as the seasons turn colder. 

“So they’re getting worse.” 

_They are,_ Viktor wants to say. Last night had been a whirlwind of winter, Viktor’s worse nightmares brought to life beneath a blanket of stifling white - the small body, Yuri, trembling underneath the covers, no fire warm enough to stave of General Winter’s relentless assault, thin fingers weak around his own; Zvezdnaya Dolina and her people dying in their homes, more casualties to the General’s unending rage - he shudders at the thought, hands spasming around nothing. His mouth is drier than a desert, and Viktor wants the smell of turpentine and the susurru of brush bristles against thick canvas. 

“I’m not talking about this with you, Yuri.” He sets his mouth to a hard line as Yuri scowls deeper, arms crossed over his chest. “ _No,_ ” Viktor says. “No, Yuri. Finish your breakfast.” For a moment, when Viktor closes his eyes, he can see the oncoming winter burned into his lids, and he stands. 

“ _Viktor!_ ” 

“We will _talk later_ , Yurotchka,” Viktor stresses, and spins away, striding out from the dining room. On his nightstand, a single pale lily is resting in the vase. Whether these visions are true are not is a non concern at this point - what matters is that they _might be._ That future - that winter, that unending death and despair - is not an option. Viktor has seen the worst of the war, seen it through holos sent from the front to the Tsar and his generals, and he knows that this winter will be just as devastating for the people of Zvezdnaya Dolina. 

When he throws open his bedroom door, the lily is still there - despite all the irrational reasons why Viktor had thought it wouldn’t be - still vibrant and alive, despite all the odds. _Lily,_ Viktor thinks, picking up the wet stem. _Lily, I need you._

_I hear you._

Lily’s voice is faint in his mind, distant and staticky, and dimly, Viktor feels the moment his legs give out from underneath him. He collapses in an ungraceful heap just shy of his bed as the world swims in front of him. _You,_ he thinks, half in awe, _you came._

There’s a hint of wry amusement in Lily’s voice. _I did say I would, didn’t I?_ Then a pause. _...Have you made your decision?_

_Help me,_ Viktor blurts, desperation loosing his tongue. _Please, help me._

_Of course._ Lily’s voice is gentle, and Viktor can feel the phantom sensation of a gentle touch atop his head. _Call my name - my True Name._

_I don’t know it._

A short burst of wry frustration radiates from Lily’s side of the bond. _Sometimes, I forget that you don’t have access to certain translation texts,_ Lily murmurs, contrite. Sorry. 

_Well, I didn’t quite go looking either,_ Viktor admits. 

Lily laughs, clear and bell-like. _It’s Yuuri,_ he says. _Not quite a correct translation._ Viktor isn’t quite sure what he means. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says aloud. The name is butter smooth on his tongue, round and silk-like where Russian is thick and raspy. “Yuuri, I accept our pact.” 

“I’m glad,” Lily - _Yuuri_ \- replies, and suddenly the phantom touch is _real_. Slender, clawed hands gingerly cup Viktor’s face, and - oh, the man before him is the thing of paintings. There is something holy about him, something like those old gods Botticelli and Raphael tried so hard to commit to oil and canvas. 

Yuuri’s gossamer veil is caught on his horns, long hair bound and spilling over one shoulder. Distantly, Viktor wonders if supernatural beauty is some kind of power Yuuri has, because the alternative is both jarring and humbling - something terrifying and unacceptable. Maddening, even, this odd exercise in familiarity - this man, this spirit that Viktor has only seen in a dream - trying to separate fever dream from cold fact. The strong jaw is there, and the ballerina bones too - things that are both similar and entirely foreign to Viktor. He remembers that rouge-reddened lip, the willowy dancer’s grace Yuuri held - holds himself with, the blackened claws and the curling ram’s horns.

He doesn’t say anything. Viktor is an artist, not a poet nor a politician, and the words he wants to say catch and stick in his throat. Yuuri’s smile morphs to something more melancholy, something more familiar than ethereal - something more human, something that Viktor knows. 

_Three pieces of art,_ Viktor thinks, throat suddenly dry. _Three pieces of art._ It feels like too much and not enough all at once, his hand itching for the paintbrush, and his mind oddly empty. 

He reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Yuuri’s thin, elfin ear, and for a moment, the task no longer feels as daunting. For a moment, Viktor can hear the raspy rustle of his brushes against the thick canvas, can smell the turpentine and feel the thick smears of paint on his skin - for a moment, it’s almost as if the war never happened, as if Russia’s soldiers never left the homeland to be cut down with bombs and knives and bullets. 

Yuuri sucks in a sharp breath when Viktor’s fingers brush against the shell of his ear, jerking away from the touch. Shock colors his fine features, flushing them peach pink and ruddy red, and Viktor watches as the flush spreads to Yuuri’s ears, trekking a steady march down the elegant lines of his neck. 

The moment, tenuous, beautiful and new, snaps between them. The world is as flat and uninspired as always, and Viktor can no longer feel the phantom of what once was, alive and beneath his fingers. Now, three paintings seems as far away as a dream, a terrible and impossible task looming above him like a guillotine poised to fall. 

Viktor stares at Yuuri, human to inhuman, and feels, all too keenly, the divide between them. 

“I should go,” he says, as Yuuri shifts away, moving off from Viktor’s bed, feet landing lightly on the floor. “My cousin - Yurotchka - he’ll need to be told.” 

Yuuri nods, awkward and uncertain, otherworldly grace almost drained from his movements. “I - of course.” He smiles at Viktor, something small and insincere that sends something bitter racing through Viktor’s veins. “I think I’ll take a look around, if that’s alright with you.” 

“Of course.” Viktor inclines his head, before sweeping out of his bedroom with a flutter of his jacket. “Don’t get lost.” 

Yuuri smiles - this time, more secretive, sly and clever - and clasps his hands behind his back. “I won’t,” Yuuri replies, soft yet certain. “Good day, Viktor.” 

Viktor walks out, uncertain what to say to that, to the sudden lurch in his chest, the way he likes how Yuuri’s voice curls around his name like something precious. It’s not a good feeling, not something Viktor likes. The last time he’d felt something like this, it had ended it fire and flame, in bombs at No-Man’s Land, dog tags made of hammered aluminum sent to Sankt Pyotr by mail, and a million other things Viktor has tried and failed to forget. 

The soft pitter patter of bare feet against the wood and marble floors of the Nikiforov Estate echoes behind Viktor, like another specter he cannot shake. In the back of his mind, Viktor sees never ending snow and bleak, dark winter streaming through the wide windows, instead of sunlight and a clear, blue sky - and shudders. The world flickers in front of him, idyllic peace replaced with nothing but death and loss, the first true Vision Viktor has had in nearly five years now, and he tries desperately not to sob aloud. 

There are a million and one regrets that Viktor carries with him every day, like Atlas carries the sky, and every day he lives with them, knowing that there isn’t a thing he can do to change them. This - this winter, this death and loss and eternal chill, Viktor can stop. 

Paintings and sorrow are more than worth that.

* * *

Yuuri knows the Nikiforov Ancestral Estate as Viktor does. The bond streams a steady conversation of information, childhood memories tinged with blood-red sorrow becoming Yuuri’s map for the marble and wood mausoleum. It’s beautiful, in a severe, Western sort of way. Russia and, by extension, Europe, is nothing like Hasetsu, nothing like home, with the ruby red torii and gleaming gold of the temples and palaces. 

Everything is harsher, harder here. The winters howl, General Winter no gentle father, taking lives as easily as they prepare for new ones. Mama and Minako have always told Yuuri about this ever-present cycle, about balance in both magic and nature - and this is how Yuuri knows, with a bone-deep surety, that the coming winter is the world, trying to set itself right. It’s something tragic as much as it is cathartic, he thinks.

_War,_ Yuuri remembers Mama saying one day, many, many years ago, _war upsets the balance most, Yuuri. It takes more than it can possibly give, and so nature strikes back, to try and take back what it lost. This is why we’re told never to wage war. Our abilities would topple the cycle - we would take too much._ Yuuri remembers how she had smoothed his hair down with a gentle hand that day, how her fingers had traced the grooves in his curling horns, as her voice held more sorrow than Yuuri can ever remember it holding. _But the people down there, they can’t seem to learn._

He remembers how she’d guided his sight down to the Earth, blue and green against the pitch darkness of space, her smile bittersweet and strange. It’s the only time Yuuri has seen his mother frown - he carries the weight of it in his chest every day. 

Yuuri sends a short prayer to Russia’s harsh father, a small apology for his loss, and a small prayer to Grandmother Kaguya, though the family shrine is so far away now. There are things worth protecting, no matter where in the vast universe you are, and Yuuri knows that this small town is one such thing. 

There’s just something inherently peaceful about this place. Prophets always seem to pick the most peaceful places to settle - Celestino had his cottage in the country, surrounded by the sun and sea, with each morning announced with quiet birdcall. Here is no different - the mountains are beautiful, sunrises and sunsets setting their craggly peaks aflame each day, and the people are warm, in spite of the biting cold. But above all, just like Celestino’s home, there is something soothing about this place, unhurried and sleepy, just on the outskirts of awareness. It comes from the people and the place, Yuuri thinks. Like Viktor. 

Viktor Nikiforov is something special. Yuuri can feel the truth of it in his bones and blood. There are the makings of something great in him, something otherworldly yet oh-so _human_ in his brushstrokes. Yuuri takes a left by the stairwell, and stares at the painted faces of Anatoly and Irena Nikiforov - he can see where Viktor takes after his mother, from the silver of his hair, to the strength in his jawline; can see where Anatoly bleeds through, in the sapphire blue of his eyes, and slope of his nose.

Humans are something beautiful - they live so briefly, but fully. Yuuri will long outlive Viktor Nikiforov, with his constant sorrow and delicate brushstrokes. Yuuri will long outlive Viktor Nikiforov, winter or no winter, and there is something tragic about that. 

“He’s strong,” Yuuri tells the painting, voice quiet and small. “I - I don’t know him well. Not like you did, but he has the strength to move past this. I promise.” It’s a bleak sort of comfort. 

Mama had once told Yuuri something about promises he couldn’t keep, but Yuuri can’t recall her words anymore. That memory is sepia toned now, jeweled colors faded with time and memory - just another blur in the back of his mind, as the centuries smear the paint of his memories together until nothing clear remains. Yuuri lets his claws hover just above the canvas, just by Irina Nikiforova’s twinkling, painted eyes, and breathes. 

Viktor’s feelings are a jumbled mess in his mind, not as clear as the memories, but the sorrow and joy are clear. _Irina Nikiforova,_ Yuuri thinks. _Loved._

Yuuri wonders how painful it must be, to love so fiercely, so deeply. How it must gouge a hole in the heart, how the heart must be left to bleed when there is nothing left to fill the hole. 

_Enough,_ he tells himself. _You’re here to help your people. Not get attached._

But Yuuri is sentimental. Mama has told him this, as has Mari and Minako and Papa and a million other people besides. Already, he can feel the holes forming, can feel the places where the blood is beginning to seep through - the fear is enough to send him to his knees. 

He moves like a wraith through the estate, not quite running, but fleeing from _something._ Later, when the sun sets the mountains and forests of Zvezdnaya Dolina aflame, and the night bleeds into the day, Yuuri will tell himself that Anatoly and Irena’s painted eyes had spooked him with some semblance of life that paintings rarely held. 

It will be a lie, the pounding of his heart giving him away.

* * *

There’s a ghost in the house. Ever since stupid Viktor left the dining room, ever since Yuri finished breakfast alone, something has been roaming the house. Yuri can feel the ambient magic in the air rustle and shake with the sheer force of whatever spirit taken residence in the Nikiforov estate, and for a moment, he thinks it might be Aunt Irinka. 

Yuri remembers Grandpa telling him about Aunt Irinka, one of the youngest spellswords in the King’s Guard, with a sword that sparked with electricity, who could summon storms with a sweep of her rapier. Mama was in those stories too, tales of her healing touch and fierce demeanor, so much like Aunt Irinka, yet so different. It feels like that, in the Nikiforov estate, feels like lightning is arcing through the air, disrupting the gentle push and pull of the ambient magic. 

Yuri is sixteen, and therefore way too old to really be putting stock into old wives’ tales such as ghosts coming back in times of immense grief or need - everyone knows that it’s during Samhain, when the veil between worlds is the thinnest - but something small and fluttering inside of him hopes that it could be Aunt Irinka. 

_Protector,_ Yuri thinks. _Strazh._ The Tzar had given Aunt Irinka that title, and Yuri remembers Mama telling him stories about that day, about the breeze in Sankt Pyotr’s wide, cobbled streets, how Aunt Irinka had marched down the streets in her dress uniform, proud ochre a sharp contrast to the imperial blues and reds. 

He comes to a stop in front of the large family painting. Aunt Irinka and Uncle Anatoly are painted in loving detail, brush strokes thick and broad, but delicate on the features. For as beautiful as the painting is, Yuri is loathe to admit that it pales in comparison to the small portrait Yuri has seen in Viktor’s empty atelier; a red headed woman, gracious and demure, velvet skirts half hoisted in one hand. 

“Stupid,” Yuri says, looking up at Aunt Irinka and Uncle Anatoly. “He’s so stupid.” 

The painting doesn’t answer - how _could_ it, without magic drying in its thick oil strokes and covered canvas - but the hairs on the back of Yuri’s neck rise, ambient magic near howling. The ghost is back. Yuri can feel its oppressive magic, like a waterfall over a small brook. 

“Come out - these are ancestral lands you’re haunting,” Yuri calls, voice trembling. He hates how it does, a betrayal of his adolescence. 

“I’m not a ghost,” a voice laughs. There’s no reverb, no echo that comes from a spirit just barely beyond the veil, just the bounce of sound off marble walls. The ambient magic _howls_ the closer this unholy thing comes to Yuri, the force of foreign magic like a ten-ton weight on Yuri’s shoulders. 

He whirls around, and for a moment, the world slows down, glacial in pacing, as Yuri locks eyes with a veiled man. The sudden disappointment, unfounded and utterly unnecessary hits Yuri like a sledgehammer out of the blue, and he screws his face up into a scowl, fury darkening his brows. “Who the fuck let you in?” He hisses, leveraging a foot forwards on the marble staircase. 

The spirit, to Yuri’s vindictive delight, lurches backwards a little, nothing close to humor gracing his veiled features. _Serves him right._

Maybe Yuri is a little more than petty. 

“This is an ancestral property,” he repeats, and prays that his voice is hard like stone - like how Viktor’s was this morning. Yuri doesn’t think he can remember a time when Viktor has ever spoken like that, for what little Yuri knows of him. He’s always been solemn at worst, but bitterly, stupidly cheerful despite it all. Deda’s stories had always put Viktor into the same light that Deda had placed Mama in. Cheerful and something fanciful, an artist all the way to his core. 

A prophet too. 

“You’re trespassing on sacred lands - tell me your name, or I _swearfinal_ to be a bluff, words permanent and ringing with truth in the marble halls. 

Yuri clicks his tongue. _Stupid fucking Viktor._ “Did Viktor let you in?” He wants to scream, wants to tear his hair out or _something_. Viktor is quite possibly one of the most powerful mages the Nikiforov line has ever produced, the product of the storms that raced through Aunt Irinka’s veins and the the ice that seemed to hold Uncle Anatoly’s spine straight as a ramrod. But he doesn’t use it - doesn’t summon storms and blizzards like Yuri knows he can, knows he could if he tried. 

Fine. Frivolous uses of power can be forgiven - Viktor’s paintings are literal works of art, oil paintings that have magic imbued into their very fibers and move like the movies do, a clear show of force, no matter how small. But this? Letting a stranger into their ancestral home, letting a strange man with magic that sets the world around it to howling is something _dangerous._ It’s reckless, an act of folly, and the thought of what this man could do to him makes Yuri want to kick, scream and _cry._

“Yes,” the man says. “I - I’m here to help. Viktor he - he asked me to come and help with your barriers.” 

Footsteps echo through the main foyer - Yuri turns around to see Viktor, day cloak half draped across his shoulders, a ripple of rich purple velvet against the pale white. He smiles, a small, passive thing, before hooking an arm around the man’s shoulder. The strange dark veil caught in the man’s hair moves as the man does, the movement almost too smooth to be natural. The feeling of foreboding comes back like a shot out of the dark. 

“Yurotchka, are you bothering my little muse?” Viktor’s smile is wider now, and Yuri wants to kick him straight in the nuts. Fuck him and his aggravating taunting. Actually, fuck Yuri for responding. His life would be a lot easier if he just ignored Viktor.

Viktor raises an eyebrow, and Yuri _swears_ that he’s _oozing_ condescension. Red flashes across his vision, and at that point, no one can fault Yuri for wanting to kick Viktor. The man quails a little when Yuri turns his sights on him, and again, a petty flash of vindictive cheer rushes through him. 

“No, because normally,” Yuri grinds out, “you’d tell your _cousin_ that you’re bringing over a strange, foreign man into your _ancestral estate._ ” 

Viktor smiles, vapid and wide. “Ah, of course, of course. Yurotchka, meet Yuuri. He was, ah, in the capital a little while ago, and well,” he gestures, a little uselessly, around them. It’s a telling motion. _Something here is a lie,_ Yuri thinks, and sets his scowl deeper. 

“Don’t _lie_ to me, Viktor,” Yuri hisses. Fine. Yuri can accept strange men in the ancestral homes, can accept Viktor never really living up to the power that runs through his veins, but _lying?_ Lying, Yuri can’t accept. This is his home too - he deserves to know. “This - this is my home too, you absolute _moron!”_ The fury of it all makes him near inarticulate with rage. Doesn’t he deserve to know? Isn’t he a part of the family too? 

“Viktor,” other-Yuuri says, voice quiet. There’s an otherworldly timbre to his voice, something that sets the wrong-plainness of his entire face right for a split-second. “He’s your family.” 

VIktor purses his lips, the unnatural seriousness back for a moment. Maybe Yuri hates it - there’s no other word he can think of that could possibly encompass the breadth of the sudden dip in his stomach. “Li - Yuuri. Is this alright?” 

Other-Yuuri spreads his hands effusively. “Secrecy was never a part of our deal, Viktor.” He smiles, quiet and small. “Besides. He,” he points at Yuri, and for a moment, the world flickers around them, and those pale fingers become something monstrous, “he’s your family, Viktor. Family is first.”

Yuri’s throat goes tight at that. Viktor, the bastard, sighs, and for a moment, looks older than he really is. Unwinding his arm gingerly from around Other-Yuuri’s shoulders, he presses forwards, towards Yuri. “Let’s talk,” he says.

Yuri was right to think that he’d hate whatever Viktor is about to tell him. On the scale of terrible things, this isn’t one of them, but a look at Other-Yuuri’s true form, horns and blackened fingers and all, sends him running, streaking to the other side of the ancestral estates. 

Yuri buries himself under the covers, and quietly curses Viktor out for all the fucking trouble he’s gotten himself into this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i say "gently cursing" as relatively as i can because we all know theres no such thing as gentle cursing with yuri plisetsky


	4. three: FIRST MOVEMENT - the red on our ledgers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> viktor paints.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been over a month! i have no excuse! forgive me! 
> 
> (also, this is the first chapter that features on of taiga's pieces! please check out her tumblr to see it - it's gorgeous.)

The first attempt Viktor makes at painting in nearly a year now is a disaster. He sits in front of the canvas for what feels like hours on end, and it bears no fruit. Not even a stiff sketch, or abstract blobs of paint on the canvas, just white. Nothing but a blank canvas, eggshell white without a trace of the deep-sea blue on his palette, or ashy charcoal. 

It’s hard to paint on a distracted mind, Viktor knows. It’s the first thing Father had taught him, amidst lessons on color theory and the proper anatomy of a man or woman. 

(he’d forgotten about it, while learning how a woman’s leg curved just so when lounging on a chaise, or how a man’s neck arched when bending backwards, as if looking upwards to pray to gods that rarely speak. 

_you’re a prophet,_ father had always said. _the gods speak through no one else but you._

perhaps, the more gentle lessons had been lost amongst the women and men and skin and color. perhaps, viktor had forgotten the real reason why father had taught him how to paint in the first place.) 

He sits there, watching the paint dry on his palette until the hours bleed together. It feels almost like a betrayal of sorts, a twisting of the knife deeper in his gut - but Viktor hasn’t been able to paint for nearly a year now. Back in Sankt Pyotr, everytime he picked up the brush, the heft of it in his hand felt like the hilt of a knife. Every stroke was colored crimson, and the turpentine carried with it the scent of old copper. 

_There’s a price for every action we take, Vitya._ Mother’s voice had been husky when she’d told him this. Her hands had been heavy over his, guiding his grip around the hilt of the sabre. The kiss of metal and leather against the palms of his hands had felt inconsequential at the time, youth tempering the gravity of it all. _Every reaction has an equal and opposite one, darling._ She’d moved them forwards, one gliding step after another, until Viktor had stumbled backwards when the sabre came up against the marble walls. 

Viktor closes his eyes, and sees red. On his hands and on his chest, red on the palette knife he’d grabbed when the assassin burst into his workshop, blade aflame and aimed straight for the velvet rosette above Mila’s heart. Viktor remembers the feeling of arterial spray against his face, the taste of blood on his lips. 

(he remembers how the visions had come in the weeks before, men in red coats with flaming torches, come to kill the tsar and his family, how yakov and lilia would burn in the main foyer, and how mila would almost escape, only to die at the hands of the ringleader, filthy hands pawing at the fabric of her dress, laughing as she gurgled her last breath, throat slit scarlet and bleeding out in her childhood bedroom.) 

Viktor gags at the memory. He sets the paintbrush down heavily and tucks his head between his thighs, gasps echoing like gunfire in the solitary silence of his atelier. It’s all too much. _No more,_ he prays, _gods, let it end, please, I’m begging -_

“Take a deep breath.” For a moment, Viktor can’t place the voice, but Yuuri continues to whisper quietly to him, clawed fingers toying with the uneven ends of his shorn hair. The motion of it is soothing, sparking some animal instinct inside of him - something childish and still yearning. Still, he sucks in a desperate breath, shoulders shaking with the force of it. “Good,” Yuuri murmurs, and Viktor imagines for a moment, that Yuuri’s voice is shaking too. 

It’s remarkably humanizing. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri continues, once Viktor no longer feels like he’s trying to swallow around half the world, “I didn’t mean to intrude.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he croaks. Everything feels incredibly raw in the moment, and now, all Viktor wants is for Yuuri to go, as ungrateful as that makes him. “But please, just - I need -” 

Yuuri hums, soft and understanding. The sound of it tugs at Viktor’s heartstrings. “Of course.” The sound of heeled loafers against pale marble echoes in Viktor’s mind, louder than the sudden gush of blood and Mila’s looping screams for a split second. 

The silence doesn’t last. Here, in the atelier, all Viktor can think about is Yurotchka’s horrified indignation and the feeling of warm blood across his face and hands. He stares at his empty canvas again, and feels tired, more worn than strung up. It’s a cathartic sort of feeling, something that leaves Viktor wrung out and not quite hollow. 

Slowly, he packs up his easel, folding the wooden joints together, the feeling of the stained wood grain beneath his hands grounding. Around the atelier, Viktor’s Cast sweeps together his paints and brushes, gathering canvas and tarp. It’s a slow process, but Viktor takes only what he needs. 

The halls of the ancestral estate are cold and empty. Winter is coming, sooner than Viktor is wont to admit, and the cold bites through the cotton of his starched shirt. His feet are bare, slapping noisily against the marble as he races through the hallways like a child out past their bedtime. The farther Viktor moves from the atelier, from the ghosts of his parents and the red-stained life Viktor took that one autumn afternoon, the easier the breaths come. 

He barricades himself in his room, easel snapping into shape with an absent minded Cast. Distantly, Viktor can hear Yurotchka’s disgruntled grumble, but his heart is beating faster than it has in a long, long time, and suddenly the air is crisp and fresh, inspiration coming easy like it used to. 

On his nightstand, Yuuri’s lily rests, still as white and alive as it was the day the other man had conjured it from nothing, white cream petals against the neon-streaked darkness of Hasetsu. Viktor reaches over, feeling one large, buttery petal beneath his fingers, runs his fingers down the pale veins woven through the petals. 

Something sparks within him - inspiration, or something more desperate, a call across the divide, _can you hear me? I’m waiting for you,_ it feels like something absolute and permanent. It feels like something capricious and destructive, solid promise entertwined with inconsistent chance. 

As Viktor mixes the shade of silver he remembers using the first time he painted Mother’s hair, he thinks it might feel a little like _living._ It’s something exhilarating and scary, the swoop in his stomach before the drop at the cliff - reaching across the divide has never felt so daunting yet so easy. 

_Stay close to me, don’t go away._ It’s the refrain of an old song, something Mother would hum beneath her breath as Father swung her around the dining room table after they’d both had a little too much to drink, but it strikes a chord, somewhere beneath it all. Don’t go away, don’t leave. 

(secretly, as he paints pale skin and broad strokes in gunmetal silver, viktor wonders when he’d forgotten all those little lessons, why he’d chosen to remember the fair-skinned women and rough fingered men, why he’d chosen to remember the glint of the sabre in the midday light and the color of mother’s emerald-green eyes - 

why he’d forgotten the small things, somewhere along the way.)

* * *

Viktor shows Yuuri his first painting a week later. Russia’s first snowfall is half a month away, steadily creeping closer and closer as the temperatures drop and the days grow shorter. Little Yuri - Viktor’s cousin - is nowhere to be found, sneaking around the ancestral estates with ancient protections wrapped around him like some Cast-charged cloak. A small part of Yuuri smarts at that, just another worry amidst the constant stream that runs through Yuuri’s mind like blood does his veins, but humans have always shied away from things different than them. He’s certain that with time, Yuri might come around, but Yuuri isn’t here to curry affection. 

Somedays, it’s hard to remember that. On the days he actually emerges from his room-turned-studio, Viktor is a cheerful presence, taking Yuuri by the hands and showing him the small nooks and crannies of the Nikiforov estate that hold the dearest memories of his childhood. Those memories rest in Yuuri’s chest, heavy weights that pang every time Viktor smiles at him, heart shaped and quicksilver, something perfectly human. 

_Dangerous_ , Yuuri thinks, reminded of the so-called legend of Mother Kaguya, how their people had come to take her back when she’d fallen in love with the human emperor. _Dangerous._ He will outlive Viktor by millennia, and Yuuri thinks that if he really loved him, the strain of it would be too much to bear. 

“Yuu-ri,” Viktor says, voice a sing-song, “come, take a look.” His hair is a mess, standing up in places, and in a near-artful disarray, and a rasp of silvery stubble traces Viktor’s strong jaw. Yuuri swallows around the sudden dryness in his throat at the sight of that, rubbing nervously at his chin before following Viktor into his room. 

The painting is a self-portrait, of a Viktor younger than the one before him, hair long and spilling over his shoulders like raw moonlight. But Yuuri’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of _his_ lily gripped loosely in Viktor’s painted hand, petals almost as creamy as the ones Yuuri remembers growing in Mama’s garden back home in Hasetsu. It and Viktor’s robin-egg eyes are the only true points of color in the entire portrait, spots of pure color against the monochrome. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri whispers, voice choked and stilted, “it’s beautiful.” He wishes he knew other words for it, wishes he knew how to say, _how did you do it._ Yuuri wants to reach in and smell the lilies and take in the scent of Mama’s garden beneath the nighttime lights - but this painting isn’t a scene from Viktor’s childhood, isn’t a place that exists on this world or Yuuri’s own. 

Viktor smiles, brighter than before, and leans forwards, resting his chin atop the crown of Yuuri’s head. “Thank you,” he murmurs, voice intimately soft. 

“Did it feel good? P-painting again, I mean.” 

“Yes,” Viktor replies, and the vibrations from it send tingles down Yuuri’s spine. “Not unlike good sex, I’d imagine.” 

That bursts the bubble. Yuuri groans, moving out from under Viktor’s chin. The other man stumbles forwards, laughing loudly. “That’s disgusting,” Yuuri says, shaking his head. “Absolutely juvenile.” 

Viktor laughs his way through a few poorly disguised attempts at describing _why_ this particular painting, and the act of making it was like having good sex, but Yuuri tunes him out, ears already burning scarlet. Out the corner of his eye, he pretends not to see the beginnings of another painting, this one with buttercup yellows and blues in shades of the skies and seas. 

_One painting done,_ he thinks, looking at the self portrait. Melancholy radiates from it, from the Viktor of a time Yuuri doesn’t know, and for a moment, all Yuuri can do is try to swallow around it. _Two more left._

It feels like such a short amount of time - but the winter is coming, and Yuuri holds the knowledge of that close, knowing that he has more time with Viktor, if nothing else. Bleak and bitter though it might be, Yuuri knows that every moment is something precious - somehow. 

(he remembers the day celestino died, how the old italian prophet had gripped yuuri’s perpetually cold hands in his own, warmth fading faster than yuuri could cast sparks of heat into them. the callouses on celestino’s hands had rubbed against yuuri’s youth-smooth ones, and desperately, yuuri had tried not to cry. 

outside, the garden is in bloom, lush yellow-hued flowers leaning upwards, always searching for the sun, blossoms yuuri cannot name fragrant and full bodied, redder than blood, but inside, the house is quiet, the heart of it dying. celestino had breathed, quiet and raspy in the bright sunlight, slats of it casting his age-spotted features in sharp relief. 

“don’t be sad,” he’d murmured, weakly drawing circles atop yuuri’s cold, cold hand with his thumb. “you’re still young, yuuri. life won’t always be like this. you have so much of it left, after all.” 

yuuri had just cried bitter, tired tears, as the sun gave way to dusk, stealing celestino’s final breaths as it went. a lesson, minako had told him, when he returned home. a hard-learnt one too. _i’m sorry, yuuri, but this is how it is. make it easier on yourself. don’t get attached._

what yuuri will not tell her when he returns home is this: from the moment vicchan found viktor on that train, yuuri already knew he would end up getting attached - the only issue would be how well he could hide it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forgive me my sex jokes because i really couldn't resist. this is more of an interlude chapter...so expect the new one as soon as i get off my ass and post it!!!

**Author's Note:**

> !!!!!i'm so excited!!!!!!all of taiga's art is _gorgeous_ , and i'll be adding it when they become relevant in-story. chapter divisions are still a little wacky for me, but as this fic is already finished, i'll be posting chapters twice a week. next update is friday! 
> 
> find me on my [writing tumblr](moonlitskin.tumblr.com)! i'm excited to start (hopefully) posting more fic related stuff on there. as for now, comments and kudos are appreciated.


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